


Sleepytime Comforts.

by KayRachaels9



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Comfort, Coping, F/M, Hurt, Identity Reveal, Learning to trust, Nightmares, Subtle Identity Realization, working together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24889918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayRachaels9/pseuds/KayRachaels9
Summary: There is a lot that comes with saving the city, including the weight of every battle. Sometimes it builds up to the point that our heroes can't sleep. They try to find methods that'll help them to cope, but they know the only thing that'll really work is having somebody to lean on. It'll take a while, but they'll find that someday.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 85
Collections: Miraculous Ladybug and Cat/Chat Noir Reveal





	1. Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by reading Takeout and Bubble Baths from Miraculous Ladybug and Her Chat Noir by Chrobins but this work has nothing to do with the fanfic specifically other than that being when I came up with the idea.

As time went on, Hawkmoth’s strategies developed, and the akumas became harder and harder to defeat. It wasn’t even the amount of work causing them trouble, thanks to Carapace, Rena, and B, they still managed to take down the akumas as they had before. They seemed different though, it was something about their powers that really managed to unnerve the team. At the end of the day, the team was having more and more trouble shaking off the battles. It was hardest for Chat and LB though. At least the others got a break, they weren’t in the middle of every battle the way the duo had been. 

Adrien had been no stranger to nightmares, after his mother’s disappearance it took months for his sleep cycle to take on a normalized appearance. Marinette hadn’t ever quite had them in that way, but everyone has troubled sleep from time to time. They were both beginning to realize that restless nights might become a much more persistent presence in their lives than they’d hoped. With every akuma they fought, they were adding fuel to a fire, ever-growing in intensity and burning faster as they were giving more material to their subconscious minds. 

It started simply enough but grew into a near-nightly occurrence. The lack of sleep carried into their daily lives as well as following them into battle. The heroes sought advice from their kwamis, and though the method of delivery may have varied, they both learned that most Miraculous holders only really got past the nightmares by having someone to cling to throughout the night. The issue is that in the past, chosens were living in times where being married at an age such as theirs was normal, now though, they’d need some sort of alternative since it’d be years before they were ready to go off and leave their parents behind. 

The solution they worked out, though begrudgingly, was to make pillow forts to sleep in. Certainly, it was childish, but it was cozy, comforting, and though easily destroyed, it represented shelter. It took a few days for them to really get used to it, but they both managed to warm up to the idea and though their nights hadn’t quite gone back to normal, there were definite results. 

The pillow forts resulted in a new issue, however. Explaining it to those around them. Marinette had started cutting back her sleepovers when the nightmares had picked up in frequency, but her parents still came into her room from time to time. Adrien didn’t have to worry about his friends noticing in the way Marinette did, but that didn’t mean Nathalie wouldn’t be there to wake him up each morning. He tried waking up prior to her knocking on his door so that he could take the time to straighten up, but he quickly learned that his bad luck crept into his early morning schedule as much as it crept up everywhere else in his life. He managed to have two last-minute early–morning shoots booked within the first week of trying, and both times gave Nathalie time to realize he was still hiding away in the night.

Slowly, the heroes learned how to transition from full-on forts to a general abundance of strategically placed pillows and blankets. It was slightly less conspicuous, but it’d be enough to throw someone off if they entered the room in the summer. They would keep pillows in a semicircle by their head, close enough to give them that tight protection, but with enough room that they didn’t feel trapped either. The blankets would just get piled directly on them as if it were armor, keeping them sheltered, but also cozy and comforted as they slept. It wasn’t the same as the forts, and the new method also took time to get used to, but it helped. It was also easier for Marinette to let Alya stay over in her bedroom since it just appeared as though she was keeping herself cozy during the colder nights. 

Alya didn’t let Marinette get away with not staying the night at her house for very long, and so Mari had to find a way that she could replicate her setup at Alya’s without causing suspicion. With some help from Tikki, they decided that a skin-tight bodysuit would replicate the feeling of security that the blankets gave and that it would be easy enough to hide if she decided to wear longer pajamas than her typical camisole and joggers. Once she was there, she could ask for a few extra pillows, and when Alya fell asleep, she could rearrange them as necessary. It wasn’t uncommon for Marinette to toss and turn in her sleep, even prior to the akumas, so that’s what she would blame for their displacement.

Marinette decided to try the bodysuit at home before using it at Alya’s so that she could double-check that it worked and that it was discreet. It took a couple of nights for her to get the full effect, and she still preferred the pillows and blankets, but she was sure that she wouldn’t wake Alya up in the middle of the night with her crying. She decided to make one for Chat as well, as he had no doubt been having the same issue hiding from his friends.

When she met him for patrol one night, she sat down with the package at her side. “Chat?” she asked, not moving to look at him.

“LB, is something wrong?” He sat down next to her, mirroring her position by pulling his knees to his chest and crossing his ankles.

“We never really talked about it, I always just assumed. But, do you get the nightmares too?”

He looked out at the sky with her, “My kwami had me making pillow forts at first, now I can get away with some pillows surrounding my head and a lot of blankets, but you get used to the added warmth.”

“Me too,” she turned to look at him with a glimmer of surprise. “I guess that shouldn’t seem so weird that we both do that since the advice did come from our kwamis.”

“Yeah,” he said, returning her gaze.

“It’s harder to hide it from my friends. My best friend is annoyed I won’t stay the night at her house anymore. With some help from my kwami, I actually figured out a way that I should be fine without her noticing that something’s up.” She placed the package in his lap. “I made a bodysuit that’s on the tighter side, I figured if I wear longer pajamas she won’t even see it if it’s underneath. It’ll be like a second skin, so I still feel the security that comes from the blankets. Then when she falls asleep I’ll just scatter the pillows around my head like I do at home. 

“This one,” she pointed to the box, “is for you. I figured you could probably use some help hiding it from your friends if you haven’t already found a way,”

“You made this for me?” He picked up the package as if she'd handed him a giant diamond.

“Sure, it wasn’t terribly hard, it’s not like the suits leave much to the imagination, and your legs are a little longer than normal, but you’re about the same height as a model I’ve rescued a few times, so I just pulled his measurements out of a magazine. If they’re a little short, it’ll still work the same way, and if they’re a little tight, well, that’s the point of it.” She gave a soft smile and turned back towards the skyline.

Chat started thinking about all the times Ladybug ran into Adrien as he tried to find a place to transform. As far as he remembered, they never really had to save any of the other models he’s worked with. Sure it may be a little egotistic, but he liked to believe she had a magazine with his face laying around in her room somewhere. “Something tells me these will fit perfectly. Thanks.” He smiled down at the box and held it closer than he’d been before.

Adrien knew he didn’t really need to hide from his friends since his father never let him stay the night outside of the mansion. Also, Nino had been banned from the house for a few years now, not that he hadn’t managed to get in during Simon Says, but that was mostly a fluke. He did however decide to give the suit a try, at the very least it was something Ladybug had designed with him in mind. He didn’t want to give that up. It took him a few nights to really feel comfortable with it, but he had something that worked in the rare instance that he’d need to use it. She looked so happy when he told her it was working that he knew he’d have to find an excuse for it every once in awhile, even if he didn’t need to hide from his friends. 

Adrien was shocked to realize he wouldn’t need to invent an excuse to use the suit, when a couple of months later, the school announced a mandatory overnight event at the school. The science classes were going to knock out their lab credits by observing various chemical reactions over the course of the night. They’d be split up into groups and would have to wake up each hour to observe what occurred and copy it down for the next group to use an hour later. By the end of the night, each group will have observed each project once, and all the groups will come together in order to review the final results. 

He was kind of ecstatic really. Not only would he have a real reason to use the suit Ladybug made just for him, but it would be his first sleepover with friends, even if his sleep was going to be minimal. He could even do it like a normal person would so long as he wore pajamas with sleeves. Maybe he’d have a few extra pillows, but he’d be fine. 

To be honest, Marinette was rather excited. She may not have had the excuses Adrien did as far as never getting to experience staying over in the school, or getting to stay over with friends in general. But she enjoyed school, even if the homework was tough at times, the learning part was fun. It also helped that she’d get to spend a whole night hanging out with the aforementioned blond. 

As it seemed, they weren’t the only ones giddy about the event. Everyone seemed to have an extra bounce to their step as they gathered in the gym to listen to the principal. 

“Students, most of you know how we intend for the night to run as we explained during your science classes, however, as always the chemicals you'll be working with tonight have the potential to be dangerous. Please, be careful.” There were a few nods and murmurs of agreement before he carried on.

“Now I have to imagine that us trying to separate you all would only result in you sneaking around to try and meet up with your friends, so we’ve decided that as far as sleeping arrangements are concerned, students will line up in two rows. Girls in one row, and guys directly across from them in another row. However, you choose to organize yourself within those rows is fine by us.”

“Sir,” Chloe Called from somewhere near the front, “I refuse to sleep in a pile of other students, I want Adrikins, Sabrina, and myself to have our own private area or I’ll be calling my father.”

“Yes, Miss Bourgeois, that can be arranged. No need to call your father.” Came the hasty response that surprised absolutely no one.

“Actually Chloe, I’d quite prefer to stick around with everyone else.” Adrien shrunk back like he was preparing himself to have this small thing taken away from him, not that anybody but Marinette seemed to notice. Then again, most people hadn’t spent years training themselves to give him their undivided attention.

With that, Chloe grabbed Sabrina’s wrist and dragged her off into a corner while muttering something about her hard work always being wasted.

The rest of the students took that as their cue to break off from the miniature assembly and grab their things. Alya quickly rounded up Marinette and Nino, calling Adrien over to where she had begun unrolling her sleeping bag. “Adrien, glad you get to stick with us. Obviously I'm snagging Nino, but you can sleep across from my girl, Mari if you'd like.”

“Sure Alya, sounds great. You know I'd never ditch you guys.” He replied, dropping his bags to the ground.

“See, Mari, he likes,” Alya grinned, causing the girl to turn scarlet. She tried to seek refuge in laying out her bedding, and it was working until Alya opened her mouth again. 

“Woah, Adrien, I guess we were right in pairing you up with Marinette, she likes to set up her pillows the same way,”


	2. Hiding it

“Woah, Adrien, I guess we were right in pairing you up with Marinette, she likes to set up her pillows the same way,” Marinette knew full well she had a good reason for laying out her pillows the way she did, so to hear he had done the same had her spinning around faster than she normally did when being compared to Adrien. “She likes to pretend they fell that way in her sleep, but they can only fall the same way so many times before I start to notice something’s up.” She continued on. 

Alya was right, Adrien’s setup really did match Marinette’s perfectly. “Alya, you should have told me you knew, I would have just started setting them up that way when I arrived,” Marinette muttered as she laid out her pillows in the way she had planned to move them to once her friends fell asleep.

Adrien’s response cut Alya off just as she was about to explain that she’d been more concerned with trying to figure out exactly why Marinette did that. “Yeah, well, first sleepover and all. One of my father’s employees suggested I try something like this to help it feel a little more like I’m not crowded by 20 other students the first time I share the room with anyone else. They said it’s comforting, it can’t hurt, right?”

“Yeah, comforting, that–that’s why I do it too.” Marinette offered before bending back down to start rooting through her bag. She waited until their conversation had started up again before exiting her crouching position so that none of them would notice that she never actually bothered to grab anything. His father’s employee suggested this? Had Tikki seen someone else do it, is this a trick that a few hundred people scattered across the globe are using on a regular basis? Was he even telling the truth? If he was, did that person learn the trick from Chat, does one of his family members work at Gabriel? 

“I think I managed to end up a pillow shy, how would that have happened?” Adrien looked over his set up once more, he had one for above his head, one for either side of his head, but not one for his head. 

“Easy fix, check this out,” Alya grabbed his pillow that was meant to go above his head, laid it down, and slid it up against the pillow that went above Marinette’s head. “Just use the other side of Marinette’s divider as your own divider. You can just slide the ones that go around your head up here and pull up your sleeping bag too. I hope you don’t mind sleeping 6 inches away from Mari, but what are friends for if not helping create weird pillow barriers for each other?”

“Haha, thanks Alya, I’m sure this will work fine as long as Marinette doesn’t mind,”

“It’s fine,” Marinette managed through a blush.

“Perfect,” Alya smiled at them both. 

The experiments went pretty smoothly, most students opted to stay up between the first few so that they could all hang out, but around midnight the students began getting their pajamas on and a few settled in while the others quieted down out of respect. 

They’d been smart enough to recognize a school full of pubescent teenagers wouldn’t operate well if they were given a full night of interrupted sleep and then were asked to get along in the morning. They set up 6 stations for observation and began experiments at 20:00. That meant that each group had about 45 minutes to sleep before getting up again to move to another station. The last observation would occur around 02:00; at 08:00 everyone would be woken up for breakfast and then the last team at each table would present the recordings and what that should mean for the experiment. Adrien and Alya were lucky enough to end up in the same group, but Nino and Marinette were both thrown on other teams. 

They were also planning to have the students break apart rocks to understand their basic characteristics, use strength testers to show students how the reading would change when they engaged different muscles, and do two of their dissections for the year, but none of that was until tomorrow, so they didn’t have to worry about it quite yet. 

The experiments were enjoyable enough, but the four were definitely beginning to tire out, or at least Alya and Nino were. Marinette and Adrien were both hoping to avoid sleeping until they absolutely had to and their nerves seemed to help them on that front.

From 01:00 to 02:00 Nino and Alya actually managed to pass out at some point so Marinette and Adrien just laid down until it was time for the groups to get up again. It went quickly enough, but that was it then, they were going to do this and then they’d have to go to sleep. 

It was kind of funny how obvious it was which of the teens had tried napping already and which hadn’t, most of them were not happy to have woken back up. Marinette thought about trying to stall her group for a few minutes to avoid having to lay down, but she didn’t want to bother anyone else over her own issues.

Adrien on the other hand used Alya’s nature to his advantage by comparing the shade of the compound to that on Ladybug’s suit, buying them all a ten-minute ramble and his mind a momentary distraction. 

When they did settle in, it did nothing to make either of them feel better. Sure the lighter sleepers will be less bothered now that their sleep had been interrupted up to this point, and their friends were exhausted enough to be unbothered by them, but even if they could have been certain nobody would notice, that didn’t suddenly make the nightmares any more bearable. They could try to revel in the comfort of their suits, but it was a bit of a far cry from their days of pillow forts, let alone having someone to cling to like Tikki originally suggested. 

There was a way to get through the night, Marinette knew that. People had nightmares all the time, and while others might pity her for a while, it would be forgotten over time. She also had to remind herself that nothing she saw would be true. Hawkmoth would be defeated eventually, and Chat would still be standing at her side when that happened. Alive, and on her team, like always. The akumas wouldn’t get past her, the Miraculous cure would do its job, and if something happened, they’d find their way back to each other. That’s the way it worked when your souls were connected through the ancient magic of the universe. She had to believe that to be true or she’d go crazy. 

She couldn’t let herself dwell on the nights that she saw herself losing Chat for good, the nights where she saw herself bleed out before she could cast the cure causing Parisians to die, the nights she saw hawkmoth land the final blow on her partner only to find that was exactly how he’d planned for this to end, the nights that Chat abandoned her side, for his cause, or because an akuma got to him, or because she finally pushed him too far away. She couldn’t focus on the pain and grief of the things they’d already gone through, the things she wouldn’t tell him, the other timelines, the things he said while he was being controlled, the fears she knew he shared. She couldn’t think about any of this, but she was. And now she couldn’t breathe. 

She did her best to quietly sneak away to the other side of the gym, there were some bleachers that managed to reach just high enough that she could look out the windows if she climbed to the top. She put her elbow on the window sill and planted her chin on the palm of her hand fixing her eyes on Paris and the few lights that remained on as a handful of Parisians worked through the night. It was so quiet and still, if only her night could be that way. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Adrien asked as he climbed up to meet her. 

“Wouldn’t want to,” she whispered.

“Hm, Paris nightlife is that interesting?” He mirrored her, resting against the sill and staring out at the limited view of the city. 

“Something like that,”

“I didn’t really want to sleep either, I’m afraid I’ll have a nightmare and bother our classmates,”

“Nightmares?”

“Yeah, I used to have them really bad when my mom left, it got better after a while, but the last year has held its fair share as well,”

“Yeah, I get that, I guess. On the surface, it-it wouldn’t seem like I should have them, but I guess I have more going on than people typically recognize…” she trailed off hoping he wouldn’t ask about it. 

“Is that why you set up your pillows that way?” 

“Yeah, and I’m guessing that’s your real reason for it?”

“Yeah, but I thought the story I came up with on the spot was pretty decent,” he grinned. 

“True, I’d take notes, but everybody’s already seen me do it now,”

They stared over the city a while longer, drinking in the lights and searching for stars. It was a relatively comfortable silence. Apparently a somber mood is what it takes to speak normally with Adrien. Maybe she’d be able to pass it off as a dream if he were to question it in the morning. But by then she’d probably be all tongue twisted again. 

Adrien adjusted himself to face Marinette, “I thought it’d be more comforting knowing I wasn’t the only one going through this, not that I’d expected to find someone else struggling with this. You just typically assume you’d feel better if you weren’t alone. But nothing really changed, it could still happen, and I’ll still have to face those same things,”

“Yeah, if anything you just tend to feel worse for the other person cause you know how bad it can hurt,”

“Yeah,”

She looked back to the city hoping for it to grant her some more peace.

“What’s that?”

“Hm?”

“You’re wearing two layers, aren’t you warm?”

“I’m what?” She looked at her clothes for a second to try and see what he was seeing. The sleeves on her shirt were riding up and you could see the hems from the body suit thanks to the light from the window. “No, I’m not warm. It’s nothing.”

“It looks like it’s digging into your arms a bit, it’s not too tight to be sleeping in?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is that also supposed to help with nightmares?”

That got her, she snapped her head towards him and looked like she was staring at a ghost.

“I mean, mine is,” he said, pulling up his sleeve so that she could see. 

Was that really it? The nightmares, the coping methods, at first it was just the craziest coincidence she’d ever seen, but was this proof? It had to be, seeing his suit felt like something broke within her, she knew this was too similar for coincidence. 

“I’m glad it really has been working,” she said tracing her finger over the hem around his wrist, “I wouldn’t have put it past you to tell me that just so I’d be happy.” She searched his eyes hoping he was seeing her too. 

“Maybe, but then you’d get mad at me for lying and I wouldn’t be able to handle that. I take back what I said about it not being comforting, I’d much rather know,”

“Ha, yeah, takes very little information to change our whole perspective apparently,”

“I’d worry this was a dream, but nothing here seems nightmarish to me.” He squeezed her hand, unsure when exactly he’d started holding it. 

“You know, Tikki said the best way to get rid of the nightmares is having someone to cling to. I think she specifically left out the part about it being my partner, but it also makes sense. We know what each other is going through, what they’ve seen, we have a reassurance they’re right there with us, and we’re always ready to have each other’s backs if something were to happen,”

“I’m glad you made us these, who knew this is how we’d find each other? We probably won’t need them anymore though,”

“Well, I’ll still have sleepovers at Alya’s, and it might be a little cooler than the piles of blankets when summer comes. So I’m not getting rid of it quite yet,”

“Fair enough,”

“Not that I want this to end or anything, but I think we’d manage pretty well if we tried falling asleep now. We can get rid of the barrier and just hold hands. We have a long day tomorrow and only a little more than four hours left to sleep,”

“Okay, as long as we can pick up where we left off in the morning,”

“That’s fine, just make sure you’re ready for Alya’s barrage,” she smiled as they walked to their sleeping bags.


	3. Future Fluff

It took a few weeks after they got married before they were really able to start sleeping well. Sure it worked that one time when they were teenagers, but they had been excited over finding each other. It’s not like they aren’t a comfort to each other now, but they would easily spook when they bumped into each other, not only did they mess up their own sleep, but they’d both startle. They’d both been trying to sleep as far to the edge of the bed as possible, but that either only worked for so long or they would lose balance and fall. 

It was a learning process for them both, they had to understand that they were both watching out for each other and they had their partner at their side. That not everything was a threat. They were getting better at it, but it took a lot to ignore what your brain had cemented in over the years.

What changed, however, was one particular night where they’d been cuddling and fell asleep holding onto each other. They were safe, in the arms of the person they trusted most completely. They had each other’s backs. They knew they were in the safest possible place for them and the relished in it. 

It was pretty safe to say that after that there wasn’t a night they hadn’t fallen asleep in each other’s arms.


End file.
